Smoking: after plateau, why peak to 190°+ ?

According to Mike Mills of Apple City BBQ fame, the higher the temp, the more tender the meat. At 165-170, pork butt will be good for slicing. 190 + makes it good for pulling.

He wrote the book Peace, Love, and BBQ. Great book.

I understand the reason for the question, but I like having the additional temp to 195-200. I have had such a variance in plateau levels that it is very assuring to watch the temp quickly climb over the last hour or two. I do not think that there is any significant drying out at that level, and I much prefer pulled pork to sliced pork...

I don't know much about smoking a pork butt, but with Briskettttt it seems to be a lot more tender when you break the plat and go in the 190's.

Some of this will depend on the individual piece of meat.

With pork, for slicing I like cooking to about 145° and rest. Slices nice and very moist. At 155° - 185° for slicing the meat is usually dry.

Pulled, I cook to 195° then test tender with fork usually end up pulling about 197° to 205° and rest.

Brisket, for me, usually takes 195° to 205° and finish dpends on the fork test. I have never tried pulled brisket. Fishlessman's comment was interesting.

Beef, 'spoon tender' - fall apart, seems to happen in the 200° to 225° and longer cook times.

GG

Stick with me on this. It looks arcane, but it's pretty close to the truth.

This is all perception, too, not based on actual measurements and an in depth Charleston-Dave-meets Wiley-meets-Grandpa's-Grub kind of NASA level study. It's just one man's perceptions.



But, look at the thicker orange and blue lines. this is what counts. Take the pulled pork off the grill at any temp, and your perception of how "moist" it is and how "tender" it is will pretty much follow the orange/blue graph. At 125, your pulled pork is moist (meaning, there is water/juice in the meat), but not very tender. At 150, 160 or so, you would perceive a lot of lost moisture. This is worse if you were to do this to a pork loin roast, for example.

Notice the dip in the blue line. What? How does meat lose moisture and then gain it back?

Two kinds of moisture. One is the juices-on-your-plate moisture of water and water-soluble proteins. Nice juicy pork-chop kind of moisture. That is GONE at 160, and ain't ever coming back. So how does it get it back? The collagen is breaking down, and re-moistens the dried out meat.

The pink and green lines are basically the same, showing moisture and tenderness as a result of the collagen break down. Since both are dependent on collagen, they are pretty much the same curve.

The pay-off is when the tenderness and moistness curves cross again at the far end of the graph. It's a fluffy inexact area, based on personal preferences. Mostly around 195 to 205.

Another reason to hang out longer toward 200 is to allow the overly fatty shoulder cut to melt off more of the fat. Again, a personal preference.

this would look a little different for a regular pork chop or roast.



(thanks to 'strike' for the use of his pen tablet)

this may have hit 210/215, fishing was good and even though there were hungry people waiting for it and a brisket still cooking in an egg, i wasnt leaving the fish. anyway this is newengland and noone knew what brisket even was and i didnt tell them it was supposed to come out sliced. :laugh:

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What is the middle part again?
GG

geez, and ppl say *I* have complicated posts...LOL..

Eggcellent analysis, ghost-of-Stike.

Now if we just redraft it with a logarithmic transformation.... :silly: